In a country with a language short on vowels and roads with even fewer street signs, we've come to rely on our trusty GPS to get us safely to our destination. Yesterday, Mildred (our Aussie GPS) turned on us. We set off early for a day trip to Plitvice National Park and asked Mildred to take us there. When, after about 20 minutes, she said "a better route may be available," we probably should have listened to her instead of laughing. The highway disappeared, then the white center line disappeared, and then the pavement disappeared. Soon we found ourselves on a tiny, pothole-filled dirt road in the woods with land mine signs on both sides. A van blocked our way and, while we waited for the driver to move it, we watched as military men in flak jackets with machetes and metal detectors worked to clear the woods of mines left by the war. We decided not to stop to pee. Mildred did get us to the park and showed us a part of the country that the tour buses certainly don't!
Off the beaten path, indeed.
ReplyDeleteI listened to a really good book (recommended to me by a New Yorker I actually read) called The Hired Man by Aminatta Forna. In one beautiful passage, we find out that the fields of wildflowers are left untouched because undetonated mines (and more than one victim of the Croatian War of Independence) are below. I have the book if you want to borrow it.
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